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‘The Improbable Wendell Willkie’ Review: The Great Disruptor

What happens when a rogue businessman hijacks a Republican campaign?

By

Amity Shlaes

Sept. 13, 2018 9:26 p.m. ET

What happens when a rogue businessman hijacks a Republican campaign? That is one of the questions that David Levering Lewis asks in his insightful, disciplined biography of the 1940 Republican candidate for president, Wendell Willkie. Willkie lost the election, but along the way he shifted the parameters of debate over the war in Europe, replacing the question “Should we engage?” to “When should we engage?”

As Mr. Lewis shows in “The Improbable Wendell Willkie,” the 1940 election wasn’t the only time that Willkie startled...